Mayor’s bike hire scheme finally set to launch in time for summer

Wednesday 31 March 2010 10:46 BST

TfL today unveiled cartoon-style characters — including one that looks suspiciously like the Mayor — to help promote bike hire. They will be in "how to use" and safety videos, at roadshows and on the website

Transport for London today said that the £114 million project, planned to begin in May, would start on 30 July.

Critics welcomed the boost to cycling but said the Mayor had failed to fulfil a manifesto pledge to introduce it "at no cost to the taxpayer".

A total of 6,000 bikes will be available from 400 "docking stations" across central London. Users will pay £3 to register and an "access charge" of £1 for a day, £5 for a week or £45 a year.

They will receive a smart card — not an Oyster card — to release a bike and can use it for 30 minutes free. Charges then rise steeply, from £1 for the next 30 minutes to £6 for two hours and £50 for 24 hours.

TfL warns that it may be cheaper to hire a bike privately if cycling for more than two hours. The aim is to keep the bikes in circulation and generate an extra 40,000 cycle trips a day.

Mr Johnson said: "In just four months London will glitter with the twinkling dynamo lights of thousands of shiny cycle hire bikes, allowing Londoners and visitors to zip around the streets.

"What we are creating is not just a cycle hire scheme, but a new form of public transport of the greenest and healthiest of kinds. It will become the cornerstone of the cycling revolution in the capital."

Riders will not be given helmets — TfL does not endorse their use — and there have been concerns that novice riders could be injured. There are also fears that many bikes will be stolen.

Paris's Vélib scheme, on which the London project is modelled, has seen 8,000 bikes stolen and 18,000 damaged beyond repair since it was launched in 2007.

Val Shawcross, Labour member of the London Assembly, told the Standard: "We are all looking forward to the Vélib. I think the key disappointment is that in Boris's manifesto he did promise to introduce [it] without any cost to taxpayers. In fact, it will be costing more than £100 million. There could be ways of financing it externally. Paris has got JCDecaux, who use the bike hire infrastructure for advertising."

TfL said the project — known as the London cycle hire scheme — could be renamed if a sponsor was found.